Tourists Flooding Jesselton..& They're Not The Only Ones!

I was at Hyatt Regency Kinabalu having dinner today and noticed a lot of guai lou or mat sallehs walking around the hotel, some walking towards the popular Upper Star bar and restaurant across the road. My father would make a sacarstic remark ,"KK is getting more and more haunted." I mean why not..with so many guais (ghosts) coming here for holidays.

Over the past two to three years, more and more tourists are coming to Jesselton to relax and rest for the night before continuing on to their Borneon wildlife adventure. I'd doubt some would stay for shopping because let's face it, they probably would have done their shopping elsewhere say KL. But of course you'd have some of the guais enjoying the atmosphere at Warisan Square or Centre Point. The tourists come from all over the world; Australia, UK, EU, Japan, Korea, China, Taiwan, etc etc. These tourists bring much needed foreign currency into Jesselton's urban economy and Sabah in general. That's what we need..cashflow! More effort has been made to improve services and promote Sabah as a tourist destination, capitalising on the dwindling popularity of other SEA destinations such as Bali, Phuket and so forth due to security reasons. Although Jesselton is pretty safe compared to KL, we need more tourist-friendly services lest we end up like Japan where tourists really find it hard to get around without having a local guide. Of course, we can't survive like Japan because our tourism industry depend heavily on international visitors whereas Japan is quite self sufficient with domestic tourism.

It's all good news really. More tourists..more money..more cashflow..more spending..economy becomes stronger with more money distributed around. But we must not forget the other type of tourists. The tourists which we Jesseltonites are not quite fond of. The type that don't really bring foreign currency but instead channel ringgits out, not to mention using up our facilities such as schools, hospitals, steal our water and electricity etc etc. 'Tourists' which take up a quite different type of 'Malaysia My Second Home Program' gladly...with the option to become citizens by voting for the Government which quite conveniently hands them free MyKads just before elections. And if they don't get the free MyKads, they can gladly approach corrupt immigration officials to buy them for a small price. Tourists whose children are now roaming the streets in Segama every Wednesday, Friday and Saturday nights purportedly to direct traffic and guide party-goers to their carpark, and expecting a small fee in return lest they smash your car windows. Keep in mind that, at the rate our Government is going in handling them, these same 'tourists' will be first class Bumiputeras in the near future and have access to Native Titles...and the true Sabahans will lose their identity, culture and birthrights.

Now some of you might say 'Nah..it can't be. It's not that serious is it?'. Some may argue 'We need them for our economy!'. I mean surely, there are other ways to look for labour to boost the economy?!. Beware. The problem is not far away. The invasion is coming. It's like Steven Spielberg's War of the Worlds where the Aliens were actually here a long time before we knew it. It's already starting in Sandakan. These 'tourists' are not the ones we are looking for. These different type of 'guai lous' are the REAL 'guai'. Ask any Sandakan resident and they will tell you that Sandakan is a 'ghost town' at night. It won't be long till the scourge reaches Jesselton. Sigh..I hope this day will not come....